Janine Flock grabs a tense midway lead in women's skeleton, chasing elusive Olympic gold

“I just tried to do what I’ve been doing for 20 years now, having a really good run, enjoying the run and enjoying what I’m doing," Flock said.

Flock — who found tons of speed at the bottom of the track in her second heat, something few sliders could manage — finished her two runs in 1 minute, 54.48 seconds.

Susanne Kreher (1:54.52), 2018 Olympic silver medalist Jacqueline Pfeifer (1:54.61) and reigning Olympic gold medalist Hannah Neise (1:54.85) hold the 2-3-4 spots for Germany, while Tabitha Stoecker (1:55.01) and Freya Tarbit (1:55.16) have the next two spots for Britain.

“I’m very happy about this result," Kreher said. “I didn’t have these great training runs, so I am a bit surprised that I was so good.”

For the U.S., Kelly Curtis is 10th at the midway mark and Mystique Ro is 17th. The final two heats of the event are Saturday.

If there was a designation for best women's skeleton slider without a gold medal from the sport's biggest races — worlds and the Olympics — Flock would hold that title with ease. Her resume is beyond impressive: she's a three-time World Cup overall champion with 15 World Cup race wins, 45 World Cup medals overall, and has silver and bronze medals from the world championships.

The good news for Flock: In each of the four previous Olympics where the women’s skeleton competition was contested over four runs, the midpoint leader has never finished worse than second.

The bad news for Flock: She’ll have to exorcise a bit of a demon. She had the lead with one run left in the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics, then found all kinds of trouble and finished out of the medals entirely.

Flock was fourth at the 2018 Olympics, ninth in 2014 and 10th in 2022.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics